The Reluctant Sheriff by Chris Offutt

Chris Offutt’s Mick Hardin novels have their ups and downs for me. I loved the first in the series, The Killing Hills, and then I seem to appreciate all the odd-numbered ones more than the even ones. The Reluctant Sheriff is the fourth to feature Mick Hardin, an...

They All Fall the Same by Wes Browne

Wes Browne brings back cannabis dealer Burl Spoon from Hillbilly Hustle in a vicious, cruel novel. When two drug dealers in Kentucky go to war in They All Fall the Same, they don’t care who gets hurt or what gets destroyed. Burl Spoon controls his empire in...

The Queen City Detective Agency by Snowden Wright

I’m one of those readers who thinks fiction authors should be free to create characters and plots, and they don’t have to be the same gender or race as the protagonist. It will be interesting to see what the crime fiction community says about Snowden...

Blood Red Summer by Eryk Pruitt

In the sequel to Something Bad Wrong, true crime podcaster Jess Keeler learns what can go wrong when you lose control of everything, the story you want to tell, and even your family life. Blood Red Summer is the story of the events of the summer of 1984 in Lake...